Tom Stewart's Methodist Experience

 

COME ALIVE

We all come from different backgrounds and different experiences. Some were raised in the church, some came from abusive families and relationships, some came out of addictions, some were liberal and some were conservative, and some had no roots in religion, and the list goes on. I was raised in a small farming community church named “Maple Grove Methodist Church” which is still located about 8 miles west of Des Moines, Iowa. We were regular attendees and my brothers and I earned recognition pins for not missing Sunday School year after year, yet our parents weren’t real Christians. As I said, it was a farming community church and most of the local farmers attended that church where they talked farming and personal things every Sunday, which often was the only day they saw each other. It was a social church. All during those years I don’t recall ever being told about Jesus as my Saviour or anything about the plan of salvation. I was taught about Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, King David and the rest of the exciting Bible stories, but not about salvation.

When I was 10 we moved to Woodland, California and I continued in the scouting program called Boy Scouts of America. I wanted to earn my “God and Country” award for which I was required to do service for the church so I became a candle lighter (altar boy) for the Methodist Church in Woodland, and I was also involved in MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship). My parents no longer attended church since they didn’t know the people and they were no longer farmers.

After completing my scouting I left the church at about age 15. During my later High School years and college years I took up smoking, some alcohol, and began using recreational drugs. In college I studied world religions and played around with different philosophies and beliefs, then in November of 1972 I encountered Jesus Christ personally. Not a religion, not a doctrine, not a philosophy, but a person. I was filled with the Holy Spirit that day, and that day I determined that I was forever done with religion, traditions, programs, liturgy, and the paths men have crafted to get to God. I know I was idealistic and very simple, but I meant it! I meant it then and I still mean it now.

I clearly remember asking my Christian friends in those early days if the church leaders I began to encounter EVER had a fire, a passion, an ache in their heart for the things of God? When these leaders began, did they have the fire, and did it just go out and the ministry just became a job, a routine, like a business manager just managing the organization? Year after year, cycle after cycle, doing the same thing……is that the kind of God we see in the Bible? The only time we see that is when the people rebelled against God and spent 40 years walking in a circle doing the same thing over and over, eating the same thing over and over, seeing the same thing over and over, all the while their God was the God of a new song, a new thing….which He wanted to give to them.

There has never been ANY time in my life when I have been so surrounded by religion, by tradition, by programs and by an empty, Spiritless, form of Christianity or so-called Christianity. A “form” (or formula) of godliness but denying the power (dunamis), which is the leading of the Holy Spirit. Christianity devoid of God’s Spirit. I even see this in many so-called Spirit-filled churches which have made their program a routine!

I have seen and heard the presence of the Holy Spirit and what He does in the midst of a people. I don’t want more or less, just a church lead by the power of God. Many, many leaders I know love the knowledge of Jesus, and love the church, and love the Bible, but have NEVER “possessed” the true power of Jesus Christ because He has never truly possessed them. They also have never known the true infilling of the Holy Spirit, and His daily influence and direction.

So what can a person do? What if a person has never experienced a revival like the great awakening, 1859 Ulster, Azusa Street, Welsh, Hebrides, Asbury, Jesus People or some other move of God? The early church told of what they had seen and heard, yet today so many Christians have little or nothing to speak about because they haven’t seen or heard much. It is an individual thing. God wants a people with broken hearts and broken and contrite spirits. A people who passionately SEEK Him and won’t let up until they find Him in a way they have never known. A personal revival. Being filled with the Spirit, overflowing with the Spirit of God. Unable to contain the things of God, spilling over into a dry and thirsty world. A river of life flowing out of them, being the light of the world, on fire, passionate, gifted, warriors, overcomers, and ambassadors for Christ.

I have been part of prayer meetings with 50-100 people walking around, some kneeling down by chairs or at an altar, shouting loud, or speaking in a whisper, crying and laughing, dancing and mourning, but real before God. All in God’s order, not man’s order. Powerful, earth shaking, healing, faithful, prayer, rather than going around a circle and praying some lifeless, visionless words without faith. Is a new Christian community that has a countenance the world can see, oneled by the Holy Spirit who makes the world stand in wonder, with lives that challenge the enemies of Christ still possible? Must we wait for another revival, or can we make this the “normal” life in Christ? If this happens the world will want to meet the author and finisher of our lives!